“Objective: To provide updated estimates on patterns of health insurance coverage at preconception, birth, and postpartum and to examine differences among rural compared with urban residents.
Rural-Urban Disparities in Perinatal Insurance Coverage Read More »
In previous clinical studies, males and females complete the same tasks; however, only a subset of those studies focus on sex-based differences in task interaction (Uhl et. al. 2007). Failure to look at sex differences in outcome and response may lead to aggregation of sex-related responses, causing neither sex to be accurately characterized (Institute of Medicine 1994). This presentation reviews the existing literature on sex differences for the following fMRI decision based tasks: Wack-A-Mole go no-go, Emotional go no-go, Event Related and Gender Rated Faces, Blocked Faces vs. Shapes, MID Reward, and Card Reward. All of these tasks are done at the Michigan Neurogenetics and Developmental Psychopathology (MiND) lab for their twin study (MTwiNS). MTwiNS aims to understand how antisocial behaviors are expressed in the brain. Antisocial symptomatology is more often present and studied in males, leading to many questions about how females with antisocial behaviors may differ (P Moran 1999).
A Literature Review of Sex Differences in fMRI tasks used in MTwiNS Study Read More »
Our creative writing and publishing project focuses not only on creating pieces of work, for our respective forms of writing, but also the meticulous process of getting that work published.
Creative Writing & Publishing Read More »
Writing is a personal, growing, and revealing experience that represents freedom and relief. Through the process of understanding other writers’ works by reviewing literary journals, magazines, and online literary journals (websites), a writer comes to interpret a style of writing of one’s own design and interpret the ideas of other writers to produce work that can be seen as an adventure.
Creative Writing & Publishing Read More »
This research seeks to understand the role of protests in the functions and dysfunctions of American democracy, particularly the connection between protest participation and the success of congressional candidates. The key working hypothesis is that social movements are able to use protests as a testing ground for quality candidates and that helps candidates to be more successful in communicating their messages to the public. Thus, candidates who are involved in protests are more likely to be victorious in electoral contests, other things equal, than are other candidates.
The Activist Backgrounds of Congressional Candidates in the United States in 2020 Read More »
Mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety affect millions of Americans every year, and have been known to be related to stress exposure. To examine the link between the development of these disorders in mice and stress, prior research primarily examines the correlation between exposure to various stress paradigms, such as Chronic Social Defeat Stress (CSDS) and Chronic Unpredictable Stress (CUS), on various metrics collected shortly after exposure to these paradigms. Because the majority of this research has focused on acute impacts of stress exposure, however, there is a gap in the literature regarding the longitudinal effects of this stress in mice, which could help create a better model of how stress influences the development of mental disorders in clinical settings.
Developing Novel Methods to Study the Longitudinal Effects of Chronic Stress in Mice Read More »
This research seeks to understand the role of protests in the functions and dysfunctions of American democracy, particularly the connection between protest participation and the success of congressional candidates. The key working hypothesis is that social movements are able to use protests as a testing ground for quality candidates and that helps candidates to be more successful in communicating their messages to the public. Thus, candidates who are involved in protests are more likely to be victorious in electoral contests, other things equal, than are other candidates.
The Activist Backgrounds of Congressional Candidates in the United States in 2020 Read More »
Myrf is a transcription factor that is essential for proper development of the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and the underlying retina. We have previously analyzed mice with a conditional deletion of Myrf in the RPE and identified resulting downstream genetic changes leading to loss of RPE and impaired vision (Garnai et al., 2019). We also identified secondary defects in the retina, loss of rod and cone photoreceptors. As the etiology of these defects is unclear, we used single cell sequencing (scRNAseq) to identify the gene expression changes associated with loss of MYRF in the RPE (Rxcre;Myrffl/fl) at various stages during embryonic and postnatal development. We hypothesize that deletion of Myrf in the RPE leads to secondary transcriptional changes in the retina that impact vision.
Role of the MYRF transcription factor in retinal development Read More »
Growing up in Dearborn’s largely Muslim community, the idea of mental health was extremely stigmatized and was believed to bring great shame to an individual or family involved in it. When the topic of mental health is brought up, I would often hear people say “as long as I have my religion, I do not feel any emotional or mental challenges” or “anybody who experiences emotional or mental turmoil is being punished by the almighty for not having a strong Iman (faith)” or is simply told that they should pray more. When we analyze original islamic texts though, we find that these diseases should not be treated as punishments for weak iman but as a simple bump in the road. Prophet Muhammad stated in the Sahih Al-Bukhari hadith collection, “There is no disease that Allah has created, except that he also has created its treatment” (Hadith 582). Given that disease is a natural part of life, why is it that people tend to stigmatize mental health? This paper will analyze primary and secondary sources on Islamic mental health. This will allow us to integrate contemporary methods such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and bring about ways to develop a more culturally competent therapy for people within the muslim community struggling with mental health and eliminating the stigma surrounding it.
Mental Health in Islamic Texts: Putting an end to the Stigma Read More »
Mutations in the mmadhc gene are responsible for the cblD-type defect in vitamin B12 metabolism. To better understand the role of the CblD chaperone protein in the B12-trafficking pathway, we propose to transfect human cells with expression vectors for epitope-tagged wild-type or mutant CblD to study how patient mutations impact localization and affects B12 metabolism. My short-term goal has been to generate the expression vectors and help establish the cytoplasmic versus mitochondrial localization of CblD.
Elucidating the Physiological function of human B12 trafficking protein CblD Read More »
